In this contest, beauty IS the beast
When you mingle with the beautiful and the well-appointed on the west side of Los Angeles and you discover that your dog’s nape has run amok, there are choices to be made.
“I mean, really,” said Jeannie Hayden, 45, a Studio City illustrator and author, kneeling in the grass to bundle up the unusually large pile of extra skin atop her dog Chiclet’s back and neck. “There’s enough for a whole new dog here. We thought about giving her a lift.”
But in the end, “we decided to leave her the way nature intended,” said Hayden’s husband, 43-year-old Gary Greenberg, a writer and comedian. That skin, they surmised, must have had some special purpose; “innate talent,” they decided to call it. They were right.
Saturday, Chiclet made her public debut at the annual-ish pet show in West Hollywood. When her name was called, in the category of best trick, Chiclet preened demurely before the audience and the paparazzi. With Hayden behind her, deftly manipulating her pile of skin, she launched into a series of impressions. First, Hayden bunched Chiclet’s skin toward her nose: a Shar-Pei! Then, her skin piled behind her ears: Gertrude Stein in a chignon bun! Finally, her ears stretched wide: The Joker! The crowded ooohed and aaahed.
Impossibly, it was not enough; Chiclet tied for third place; the winner was a 7-year-old Romeo Marx, a Tibetan terrier trained to strut the catwalk like Tyra Banks. Asked whether Chiclet would recover, Hayden said: “Sometimes she’s not that communicative.”
Hayden and Greenberg weren’t serious about considering whether Chiclet should have some work done -- we think -- but these sorts of gatherings are episodes of serious dog adulation.
Barking is called “vocalizing,” and owners are not owners but “guardians,” connoting a more egalitarian relationship. Guardians chatted about their dogs’ back stories. One was bred to herd chickens in Cuba; another tried to make it in show business but “had a hard time concentrating,” his guardian said. One dog spoke Russian. Several were praised for soiling the grass.
Emcee Eugene Paulish Jr., a former city of West Hollywood employee, opened the show by explaining that his dog -- a former stray named Slayer or, more formally, Buffdog the Vampire Slayer -- would not be eligible. Because of nepotism.
“I know you’re all intimidated. He’s a sure-fire winner,” Paulish told 100 people gathered in West Hollywood Park, as Slayer’s eyelids drooped in advance of another nap. “But we don’t want the ethics of this questioned at all.”
The show is staged once or twice a year at no cost to the public.
Other winners included Blanky, a 1-year-old bichon frise that perched on the handlebars of a bike and was named most creative despite a minor tumble; Mr. B, a 104-pound Weimaraner that won biggest dog; and Petunia, a 4-year-old English bulldog that won the look-alike contest along with 1-year-old Whitney Wilcox, her guardians’ daughter.
In the most heavily contested competition, Piglet, an 11-month-old French bulldog, won the honors as cutest puppy and took home serious swag, including waste bags and a stuffed toy octopus, ready for mauling.
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